JOHN CRUTHERS Rococo Pop Pty Ltd 10

DEUTSCHER AND HACKETT IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN AND INTERNATIONAL WORKS OF ART Sydney 26 August 2015 JOHN CRUTHERS rococo pop pty ltd 10. FIONA HALL born 1953 Material world 2001 gouache on bank notes 10 pieces, 64 x 230 cm (overall) $80,000 - $120,000 Although not a household name, Adelaide-based Fiona that broadly dealt with good and evil, order and chaos. painted in watercolour an endangered species native to Hall is one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists that country. In Material world she has narrowed the fo- with a body of work in photography, sculpture and instal- Hall’s early photographs show an artist drawn to the odd cus to leaves from trees that have a specific relationship lation reaching back to 1974. She represented Australia and surreal aspects of the everyday world. Later she to the primary religious figure or religion practiced in that at the 2015 Venice Biennale. constructed 3D dioramas from materials such as ba- country – Buddha, Conficius, Hinduism and so on. nana peel and electrical cords which she photographed, Hall was born in Sydney in 1953. Her mother was a continuing her interest in images that are mysterious In 1998 Hall was commissioned to design a fern garden radio-physicist and her father a telephone technician. and difficult to read. In 1983 she took up a photo stud- in the central courtyard of the NGA. It’s a magical space They lived on Sydney’s outskirts and regular bush-walk- ies lecturing position at the South Australian School of for reflection after a morning’s viewing at the gallery. ing gave Hall a appreciation of the environment and the Art. She’s had an ongoing interest in sculpture, and her natural world. She enrolled in a painting diploma at East series Paradisis Terrestris, of sexual organs and fruiting Hall is not a prolific artist and the current work is a very Sydney Technical School but gravitated towards pho- bodies sculpted from the tops of sardine cans, was the fine example from a key point in her practice. Unlike tography. As there were no courses, she largely taught work which brought her to wide attention in 1990. many of her major works, it is domestic in scale. I berself. After graduating in 1975 she spent two years in believe the work was priced at $40-50,000 when pur- London assisting photographer Fay Godwin, then four In the past two decades Hall has focused on making chase from Roslyn Oxley Gallery in 2002. So while the years in a photography workshop program at Rochester sense of the world, particularly the threat to the natural price has risen, it still represents very good buying by a in the US. She completed her masters in 1981 with a world by western society and global capital. The current significant and strikingly original Australian artist whose residency at the Tasmanian School of Art. Over this pe- work was produced concurrently with her installation work has explored some of the crucial issues facing our riod she read widely, including English romantic poets, Leaf litter 1999-2003 (National Gallery of Australia), world, natural and man-made. Strongly recommended at Christian texts and ancient philosophy, leading to works comprising 200 banknotes over which the artist had the bottom estimate 16. HOWARD ARKLEY 1951-1999 Suburban 1983 synthetic polymer paint on wallpaper on canvas 160 x 121 cm $35,000 - $45,000 Born in suburban Melbourne in 1951, as a teenager Howard Arkley was inspired by the work of Sidney Nolan. But he first came to attention as a min- imal abstract painter, using spray paint to create calligraphic abstract forms on a white ground. In 1979, inspired by the punk and new wave movements, he was drawn to repetitive patterning and made series inspired by designs he photographed on the screen doors of suburban houses. It was the beginning of a life long practice dedicated to the humble Australian suburbs where he had grown up – particularly houses, both interior and exterior. In a way he was a landscape painter of the suburbs, and there is no doubt in my mind that unlike say Barry Humphries and Dame Edna, Arkley was celebrating the excesses of pop culture he found in the suburbs. By 1983 he was experimenting with the use of doodling, using black spay paint to draw the outlines of his compositions, which he then filled in with flat colour. For a handful of works, he collaged wallpaper or posters onto his canvases, which he then doodled onto in black spray paint. In the current work Arkley uses as a support a sheet of white wallpaper with a delicate filigree abstract pattern. Onto this he has drawn a kitschy 1960s suburban interior, complete with TV set, dining room suite, armchair, framed painting, chandelier, wallpaper and curtain. Arkley’s drawing begins as a doodle but moves quickly towards the decorative in his pronounced use of patterning. The work was first shown at Ar- kley’s solo exhibition at Roslyn Oxley Gallery in 1983, and twice in the following two years, once in Edinburgh. While this is not the type of work for which Arkley is best known – the triple fronted suburban homes, factories and freeways – it is a very pure expression of the fundamental concerns of his work. As such it would be an interesting and original way in which to represent him in a collection. It is also potentially buy- able for less than half the likely price of his suburban house painting. Note that the painting was passed at Shapiro in Sydney in April 2015, at toppy estimates of $50-70,000. It is now back up at D+H with more sensible estimates of $35- 50,000. Recommended at the low estimate or a bid above. 20. ROSALIE GASCOIGNE 1917-1999 Summer stack 1990 sawn soft drink crates on plywood mounted on board 91.5 x 69 cm $140,000 - $180,000 Summer stack 1990 is an interesting comparison to the Gascoigne work Plaza 1988 at Sotheby’s. That is a reflector piece, her most saleable medium, while the D+H work is split wooden soft drink boxes, her second most popular. I would bet on Summer stack just nosing out the Sothebys work for top price. While it’s not the favoured medium, it’s a very appealing example, nicely put together from very thin slats of wood, and assembled so that the colours really dance across the surface. The work itself was inspired by the variegated haystacks Gascoigne saw in the country around Canberra, as she drove around collecting material for her work. It was purchased from her 1991 solo exhibition at Pinacotheca, and in 1994-95 was included in a NSW regional gallery touring exhibition about geometry in contemporary art. It is also reproduced in McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art to illustrate the essay on the artist. Summer stack sold at Deustcher-Menzies in 2004 for $112,375. A decade later the Gacoigne market has lifted slightly but is still generally uneven. However, this is a quality example and it should reach the bottom estimate or very close. Recommended, but I suggest a watching brief, and if it passes, offer $130,000 plus buyer’s premium. As a boy Howard Taylor was interested in making things, and in his teenage years he began constructing model aircraft. In 1936 he enlisted in the RAAF and trained as a pilot. He was shot down over France in 1940, but when a prisoner of war in Germany he developed an interest in art, making many sketches of camp life in secret. At war’s end he returned briefly to Perth, but headed back to the UK where he married and enrolled at art school. Back in Perth in 1949 he had his first solo exhibition. In 1951 he began teaching part time while continuing to make art, a pattern that continued for the next 20 years. In later years Howard Taylor became, along with Guy Grey-Smith, the pre-eminent exponent of modernist landscape painting in Perth in the post-war period. Unlike Grey- Smith, he also worked extensively in sculpture, particularly wooden forms that reflected his interest in the forests of WA’s south west, and particularly the Western Australian light. He is widely represented in Australian museums and has been the subject of two retrospective exhibitions, most recently at the Art Gallery of WA in 2003. Through a productive relationship with Gallery Dusseldorf in Perth, Taylor’s work was carefully exhibited and a price structure built that reflected his importance. On the primary market key paintings have sold at prices at or above $200,000, and sculpture up to $400,000, mostly to Australian museums and key corporate collections. The secondary market for his work is less well developed, but he had a breakthrough sale in 2012 when the large painting Cloud 1993 (91.5 x 215 cm) sold for $195,200. Three of the four works in this group have been consigned by the family of one of How- ard Taylor’s oldest friends. They were acquired, by purchase or gift, on Taylor’s advice and represent works of the highest quality for the periods from which they come. Study for mural 1956-57 shows one of Taylor’s first attempts to mix the constructions of his youth with the paintings he had been making for almost a decade. It was made as a study for a large mural he had been commissioned to design and construct. Painted in gouache on three timber boards joined together, it has a strong physical presence, accentuated by the shaped steel wire that helps articulate several of the structures in the work.

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